EQUALITY IN HAMLET AND THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR

Reinier Zoutendijk – J3C – J3.2 pt 1

“Nothing but to show you how a king may go aprogress through the guts of a beggar.”

In this essay we will look into the similarities concerning equality of the human race between the Syrian Civil War and Act 4 in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In act 4, Claudius asks Hamlet where Polonius is, and Hamlet answers to Polonius that ‘Polonius is at supper”. Polonius asks Hamlet to explain his answer, and then Hamlet explodes in a rhetorical fire, which illustrates the fact that man is created equally as they both die and are eaten by worms. To Hamlet, a king isn’t worth more than a beggar.

Equality in Hamlet‘Hamlet’ is a play which includes kings and queens, lords, knights and a lot of other royal figures. So it can be quite the surprise when Hamlet says the following: ‘Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat allcreatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table: that's the end.’In the end, death comes for both royals and beggars, and the worms don’t care if you’ve been a king or a thief: death can be fast, unexpected and comes to people in all the different layers of a society.

Equality in the Syrian Civil WarTo this day, the Syrian Civil War has killed more than 120.000 people, some organizations such as the United Nations have even stopped counting the death. Whether it be the barrel bombs falling from Assad’s helicopters or islamistic militants, people have died by them and even more will die. In Syria, the ISIS won’t keep you alive if you earn more than $100.000 a year, or drive a fancy car. The Iranian regime doesn’t care if you’re a beggar and have already lost your parents and friends in the gunfire. Syria can be seen as a war-torn country, and while there isn’t a lot of democratic improvement, bullets and missiles bring at least one specific form of freedom: equality. It may be harsh, but is the truth.

Lessons Learned

While Shakespeare has written some extraordinary great literature and poetry, and a lot of great speeches and books have come to our modernized society, the most important lesson on this topic is a very old one: memento mori. There is no need to feel better than someone else, or feel pity for yourself because you’re not a king. In the end, we’re all equal. So let’s behave ourselves in a way that does justice to all that have fallen in Syria and for the old king Polonius. Let’s be equal in a way that even the pigs in Animal Farm would be jealous of.